The pace car was the other thousand of people.
This thing was well run, I was amazed. Their map had you come in 812 from 130, through Lot A, Tunnel1, through garages onto pit road and track and exit at the last turn, behind the garages, out through Tunnel 2. I like to go 21 and in 812 and thankfully they let us in that way. They also let traffic on the Blvd coming in from the other way go into A. Once in A, you circled around a couple of times, then met up with the other line and went through the tunnel and then they directed people to lines for the garages. 1 car per garage to do contactless dropoff of canned goods/cash, if you wanted (my old fat ass wasn't getting out of the rental so I just gave online instead). Then they would direct the cars onto pit road and onto the track, 2 lines through to Turn 11.
Our first lap, it was pretty bumper to bumper to 11. Then we got some room and went single file and I could play with the gas. That was a f'in hoot.
Took a break at the gas station, came back and did lap 2. That time, it was empty all the way to 11, then double lined back from there to the end. So gas time on the first half and just a little on the second.
I got up to ~65 a couple of times. As much shit as I talk about COTA, this was so well run. They had plenty of people, they had thought out how to get people circulated around and onto the track. They had thought about getting you out of there afterwards. Whatever they did today, they need to keep doing. There was a TON of people there, so the slow lines on track were to be expected, plus they already told you 20mph ahead of time, but even with all those people we kept flowing fairly good.
Only "incident" we saw were two broken down cars about 2/3 up the hill. 1 was an late 60s muscle car being loaded onto the flatbed, other I think was a 240SX being looked at under the hood.
Oh, and so far they have raised $173,000 for Centra Texas Food Bank. https://help-prepare-families.everydayhero.com/us/cota